


Passive Suicide

by NoName (lightworlddrifter)



Category: Welcome to Hell - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:52:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3368540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightworlddrifter/pseuds/NoName
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you choose to engage in reckless behaviors, in the hopes that it will kill you, does it count as suicide?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Passive Suicide

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so, some background real quick.
> 
> My mom has her PhD in behavior, and often times we talk about a phenomenon she likes to call 'Passive Suicide,' which is basically where you choose to behave in a way that puts you more at risk for death, in the hopes that you will die, but without actively seeking out your own demise. A passively suicidal person would do things that put their life or health in danger, in the hopes that some outside force would end their life for them, rather than just killing themselves like an actively suicidal person would.
> 
> So, I got to thinking, would passive suicide still count as suicide in the w2h verse? And I decided: probably, since the person is putting themselves at risk with the intention of dying, and suicide is all about intent. Like, if you accidentally shoot yourself, it's not a suicide unless you did it on purpose, even though you were the cause of your own death. It's that same sort of logic. 
> 
> Anyway, that's basically the concept I had in mind when I wrote this, so enjoy, I guess? or don't. It's up to you.

It started with cigarettes. Jonathan had an acquaintance who worked at the convenience store who asked for ID but completely ignored his birthdate. A pack a month and the silent hope that he would develop lung cancer and die. He figured it wasn't technically suicide, and normally it wouldn't be, except his intent behind smoking was to bring about his own death.

He knew cigarettes would take too long, so next was not watching for traffic. He wasn't brave enough to walk out into a busy road,  but if he stopped looking both ways and blindly charged forward, then it could hardly be considered his fault if he got hit by a car. Again it was the intent behind his actions that seal them as suicidal.

The reckless actions just kept adding up. He hung out in abandoned buildings, praying they would fall down on him. He would run a knife gently over his arm, hoping he'll lose focus, slip up and cut too deep. He started sitting in the backseat of his mom’s car so she wouldn’t notice his unbuckled seatbelt. He played with matches, bleached the bathtub clean with the door closed, sat on the edge of the rooftops, all hoping for some freak accident to occur, to just _kill him_ because he wanted to die so very much but he knew he wasn’t brave enough to do it himself.

Whenever Sock gives him his daily reminder to kill himself, all Jonathan could think is _I'm tyring_.

He finally got his wish while climbing a tree in a thunderstorm. This particular tree was riddled with lightning scars and the teen had hoped to become another one of them, but instead a branch broke under his weight. The fall was only about 20 feet, but Jonathan had gone lax, and slammed head first into the concrete beneath the tree.  Everyone around him labeled it as a freak accident, a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But Jonathan knew. And so he wasn't surprised when he woke up in a pristine white office, a man fitting Sock’s description of his boss hovering over him, offering him congratulations on a job well done and directing him to his new assignment alphabetizing the hall of crippling phobias. For the first time in a long time Jonathan felt strangely happy, and gladly set to work without complaint.


End file.
